Dolphin Point man Damien Martin was on a break from his job as a chef at Bannisters when he saw five children and two adults get into trouble while crossing the inlet from south to north. 

Without hesitation he jumped in after them, swimming them back to the rocks one at a time.

“I walked down and there was about 20 people scrambling down on the rocks. I asked a lady what was going on and she said there was kids getting sucked out to sea in the rip,” Mr Martin said.

“I just ran down and jumped in and swam out to them. I got to an older lady and a young girl first and grabbed them both and swam them in.”

However, the words of the young girl he rescued next haunt him. 

“I ran around the rocks again and jumped in and pulled a younger girl out. That was a scary one. She was going down and not coming back up,” Mr Martin described.

“I grabbed her and she was saying she just wanted to go home and she didn’t want to die. 

“I said to her, ‘Just hang on to me and I will get you in’. That makes you feel sick to your stomach. It is overwhelming.

“I know I am fine in the ocean but if something else happened to someone else like this, that is what you can’t deal with. It is a horrible thought.”

Once the girl was safe, Mr Martin entered the water again to retrieve the rest of the swimmers, including a 43-year-old man who attempted to help the group. 

“Lastly, I ran around and got one of the guys who was trying to rescue them, but was getting washed out,” he said. 

Read more: Seven people pulled from water at Dolphin Point

“I helped him out as well and he was throwing up a lot of sea water. He was probably in the worst condition out of everyone. 

“When I left, the man was in an ambulance.”

Once he had pulled the man to safety, there was chaos on the shore as people “screamed that someone was still missing”. 

“I made a point of doing a head count and making sure everyone was there because that is the scary stuff, if someone is still out there and under,” Mr Martin said. 

“They got sucked all the way out and I ended up bringing people in right on the point. They got swept 300 to 400 metres at about 12 to 15 knots. It was really moving.”

The 33-year-old said he was “in the right place at right time”.

Signs warning swimmers of the dangerous current in the inlet were not enough, Mr Martin said. 

“I don’t think there are enough signs warning of the danger. It looks like a dream but it can, at the bottom end of the tide, get really dangerous,” he said. 

“There needs to be better signage and maybe safety buoys in place. Although, I still don’t know if a safety buoy would have helped me, even if there was one. I tried to use a surfboard but it was more of a hindrance when six to eight foot of whitewash was hitting me and I was trying to hold onto someone else.

“For 250 days of the year, it is fine here. But there are a couple of days when it is dangerous and people aren’t savvy enough to know the conditions.

“I think everyone is lucky it turned out for the best.

“I have seen a few people get in trouble there already this year. I was sort of shocked that the parents let the kids swim by themselves at that age.”

After his heroic efforts, Mr Martin returned to work in the kitchen at Bannisters to serve dinner on Wednesday evening. 

The surfer and spear fisher said he was comfortable in the ocean and visited the inlet daily for a swim. However, he warned holidaymakers, or people who are not confident in the ocean, to steer clear of the waterway. 

“If you are on holidays and normally live inland, it doesn’t matter how big the surf is. People panic and start getting swept out to sea,” he said. 

This was not the first time Mr Martin had come to the aid of swimmers in trouble, having pulled a mother and her two young children from Narrawallee Inlet.